There were also reports over the weekend that BlackRock, the $US6 trillion asset manager, was eyeing the crypto market and had created a working group to study it. But a source close to the company’s operations told Business Insider that the group has existed for several years.

At last check, the coin was trading up 9% at $US7,359 a coin, according to Markets Insider. Elsewhere, ether was trading up 5%,at nearly $US500 a token. In total, the market for digital currencies is up more than $US50 billion since July 13, according to CoinMarketCap data.

Despite the bearish sentiment that has underpinned the crypto market for much of 2018, there are bullish indicators.

Fintech analytics firm Autonomous NEXT found that the market for initial coin offerings has continued to grow this year and Wall Street firms are moving quickly to adopt technologies related to crypto.

“The financial industry is working to build tokens into an asset class, with developments across custody, institutional exchanges, decentralized exchanges, traditional financial products (e.g., Bitcoin futures) and Security Tokens,” the firm wrote in a recent note.